LITTLE FLOWER AUTOBIOGRAPH New translation by Mgr. Knox

MGR. Ronald Knox is now enageged on the autobiography of the -Little Flower," so he revealed when delivering the Romancs lecture in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, last week. " It isn't a simple process," he said. " to put one's self inside the skin of a young French female Saint. But one has somehow to sink one's own personality and wrap oneself round in a mood whenever undertaking such work as this."
Mgr. Knox was dealing with the tasks of a " a good translator." He is responsible for a translation of the Bible, which, it is often said, has the advantage of "making sense " of the Epistles when they are read out at Mass on Sundays. The translator, said Mgr. Knox,must try to look 50 years ahead.
Current English was current in more senses than one, and no one could possibly tell what it would be like in the year 2007. " Oh, for
a timeless English ! The translator must do his best by using the speech that conies natural to him, fortified a little by those good old English words which are out of favour but not obsolete. His style must be his own. his rhetoric and emphasis must be that of his original. And always at the back of his mind he must imagine that he is the original," Mgr. Knox observed.